The Students Guide the Party Back Into the Cave

After a short rest, the cave lead resumed with My Alchemical Romance and the VQU student trio walking into danger together. The students were lower-year, low on resources, and still very much students. Nell Quiv cautioned that they were out of spell slots. Zetch kept bouncing off Vic and treating murderball-style throws like a newly discovered hobby. Ellenthyra Mew talked with Ash about leaving the Temple of the Equinox Veil and following Albert's path from monkhood toward greater power. That last part sat badly. For Ash, the idea of young monks treating Albert's power path as aspirational was not just personal discomfort. It was a warning sign. The cave mission had become more than a rescue route. It was an upperclassmen and lowerclassmen crossover, a place where VQU's newest adventurers carried ambition, exhaustion, and half-understood legends into a problem they were not ready to finish alone. The party re-entered the cave with guides. But the guides were also reminders that VQU was producing more people willing to chase power into dark places.